Gamish Designer - Adventures in Game Design: Origins 2012

Well, Origins happened and it was a great time. It's one of those things that happen in a progression of anyone who is trying to be at least somewhat professional at this (even if you end up doing this while you're doing something else to make those ends meet) you hit that convention where you feel you're starting to get it. Not that you can ever be complacent with what you're doing, or what you know, or anything really but you do feel like you've hit some sort of milestone on occasion.

This Origins was one of those for me. It felt like I was more comfortable talking to people about work, though not nearly as comfortable as I should be yet, and promoting the stuff that we're doing.

Also, I found out one important thing

Geoff is way better at running Critical! than I am.

He's a lot funnier than I am when it comes to running the game. I thought we'd be on par, and have moments that were hilarious while we were both running it, but do it differently. No, he's just flat out better than me at running this game. Now it means I have to up my game when it comes to Critical! and that means it's more good times for everyone.

Let's do some game recapping!

Game 1 - Unofficial Critical!

I ran a game for a bunch of people I know who were passing by and didn't have something to do right then, and it was a lot of fun. We had a Barnabus (we always have a Barnabus), a Mary and a Marten at the table. They ran through You All Meet in a Tavern, which ended up with them leading the protesters on a protest against the Duke rather than underground against the workers.

Best line goes to Marten, "Wait, let's over think this."

Game 2 - Geoff running Critical! - Clucking Arises

Geoff was supposed to run The Importance of Being Gwendolyn but instead ran a game that I had only heard of in stories. It was a great time, and we had two parent child tandems. We had a dad and his daughter (between 9-11 ish) and a mom and her daughter (again between 9-11 ish). The daughter with the mom had never played RPGs before, and I'm kind of glad she ended up playing in this game.

Needless to say it was a fun time chasing chicken like creatures, who had kidnapped some chickens, with the farmer in tow. We had a Barnabus (because my daughter says I'm a lot like Barnabus) an Angelique, a Mary and a Daphadiana. The Daph player was great, "I come in and sing a song about how awesome you are!" and the Angelique player kept going, "I run ahead and do things! Score!"

In fact, the Angelique player kicked two Boogums through the uprights.

It ended up the giant stone statue waking up, but having been fed a levitation potion so I kept spinning on its axis when it talked, which Geoff modelled for us whenever it wound up talking. We couldn't keep playing, we all ended up laughing so hard ... which is good because I found out that I'm best when playing an annoying pedant.

Best line goes to Angelique, "I want to punch Stelph in the face."

Game 3 - Geoff running You All Meet in a Tavern

My Game of Critical was going on the same time that Geoff's game of Critical went on. My game wasn't all that memorable, but Geoff's was. He got a table full of people and this was a conversation that was had:

PLAYER: There's an awful lot of girl pregens here.
Geoff: Yeah. I made eight pregens. Half are male. Half are female.
PLAYER: Why are there so many girls?
Geoff: Because it's representative of the actual human population.
PLAYER: Yeah, but not in *gaming*.
Geoff: Sigh.

There were some good moments. The player who played Mable was just amazing. Every ten minutes we'd stop our game and listen to the song that Mable was singing. It was on point. Angelique was awesome too, I was recounted the tale of much ass slapping with the traditional sporting words of, "Good play" and "Get in there!"

What else did you do?

I ended up playing in a game of curse the darkness which was a lot of fun. I can see that it would make for a great series of small campaigns. You just have to get used to the fact that characters are going to die. There's a nifty little mechanic, if it's allowed to develop organically, that really pushes the fact that even in death your characters can have an impact on the game.